Perhaps root sculptures are shadows of the world that existed long ago, when the forest still teemed with animal life. The strange, twisted shapes of the roots may be the last, secret reminders of that life. Paradoxically, to bring out the nature’s message, I have to commodify it by making an object out of what was a moss-covered, secretive, hoary tree root. It is as though the spirits of the animals that inhabited the forest are lodged in the trees, and the only way to bring them back to life is by painting them and taking them out of the forest into the civilization. By applying paint to the roots, I manipulate nature in order to create an artifact. These root sculptures are poignant reminders of it all—the purity of nature, our manipulation of nature: nature as commodity; nature freely giving of itself in order to remind us of what we it once was, and what we, as a civilization, have lost.
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